Contemporary Music Festival with the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra

After such a successful collaboration with the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra last year, we will once again participate in the TSO’s Contemporary Music Festival. There will be a wide range of contemporary music. Students from NTNU and nyMusikk Trondheim invite the audience to celebrations both before and after. In addition, drinks will be sold both before and after the main concert.

TAN DUN – CONCERTO FOR SIXTan Dun “Concerto for Six” is a playful dance-like piece, evoking the joy of a village ritual. Clear traces of classical Chinese instrumental music are present. “Concerto for six” is through-composed, and is contructed from a set of variations based on the number sequence 7-6-5-4-3-2-1. This number sequence controls piece metrically, and also affects its rhythm and tempo. In the piece, the musicians sing “Qi Liu Wu-Si-San-Er-Yi” which in Chinese means “Seven-Six-Five-Four-Three-Two-One.” In contrast to this strict structure, each of the six musicians play cadenzas and elements of free improvisation, which one might expect in a concerto.

TAN DUNThe conceptual and multi-faceted composer / conductor Tan Dun has set his mark on today’s music scene with a creative repertoire that blurs the boundaries of classical music and multimedia performance, where eastern and western traditions meet. He has won several of the most prestigious music awards, including Grammy, Oscar, and Grawemeyer awards for classical composition, and “Musical Americas – Composer of The Year”. Tan Dun’s music is played throughout the world by leading orchestras, opera houses and international festivals.

HIKARI KIYAMA – KABUKIHikari Kiyama uses the intimate Japanese genre called Kabuki, a popular theater form dating from the 17th century. It is characterized by highly-stylized design and makeup used by actors, two elements that serve to interpret stories and characters. The individual ideograms that form the word “ka-bu-ki”, meaning song, dance and art. Therefore, the word often translated as “the art of singing and dancing.” Kiyama’s “Kabuki” also incorporates song, dance and art. The first part, “song”, shows the inflection of the Japanese language. Then the elements of dance and artistic skills are gradually incorporated.

HIKARI KIYAMAHikari Kiyama is a Japanese composer and improviser. He began his composition studies in 2001 in Tokyo. During this period he became interested in music that exists in the borderland between improvisation and composed music. His main goal as a composer is to create music which tests the limits of extreme speed and register, just as Michael Schumacher did with race cars. Hikari came to Belgium in 2009 to continue studies in composition. While there, he became interested in “new complexity music” (Brian Ferneyhough), DJ Tiesto, Slip Knot and electronic dance music. This collision of influences come together in the area between “chaos” and “order.” These contrasts provide the framework for Kiyama’s compositions, in which a quest for the expression of the extreme is prominent.

Because he was born in Honshu (south-western part of Japan), and was born into a family of magicians and gurus (spiritual teachers), he believes that chaos and order can coexist. This was and is his conviction in life as well as in music.